When a 7.0-magnitude earthquake hit Lushan county in southwestern China’s Sichuan province on April 20, killing almost 200 people, the Red Cross Society of China (RCSC) did exactly what you would expect of China’s largest charity — it took to traditional and social media to solicit donations for those affected by the disaster. What was less expected was the unsympathetic reaction to the appeal.

In the 24 hours after the earthquake, normally prime time for fundraising, the RCSC raised a paltry $23,000, small change compared with the $3 million raised by the One Foundation, a charity founded by movie star Jet Li. The problem was not that the Chinese public did not want to give money — the problem was that they did not want to give money to the RCSC. On the RCSC’s official account on Weibo, China’s Twitter-like service, the organization’s post requesting donations solicited pages and pages…